1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method suitable for processing image data acquired by a digital camera or other apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technique for analyzing a subject and an event of an image and automatically generating metadata has been known. In such an automatic generation technique, metadata that is extracted from an image is generally provided to the image of an extraction origin. For example, in the case of a digital camera, metadata that is extracted from a captured still image is generally stored in a header portion of the corresponding image.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-062868 discusses a camera that recognizes a figure (person) of a captured image in corporation with an external database and provides metadata to an image. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-039354 discusses a camera that extracts character information from a recorded image and provides the extracted character information thereto as metadata. Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-165822 discusses an electronic camera that overlaps related information on a captured image and displays the captured image, when a previously registered subject figure (person) exists in the captured image.
However, the metadata that is provided only according to the technique in the conventional art may not be usable for various applications. For example, metadata available at the time of viewing a captured image may not be provided.